FiFty Fifty

Chapter Thirty Four

KATE

The full effect of Tyler's testimony hit Kate like a dump truck.
Detective Tyler alleged Frank Avellino was being drugged against his will, so someone could take control of his affairs and his money. Then he confirmed a recent power of attorney had been executed in favor of Alexandra and Hal
Cohen.
It looked awful. It looked like Alexandra had manipulated her way into a
position of trust by drugging her father. Another step closer to his fortune. Dreyer didn't ask anything else. He sat down.
He let the implication of Tyler's testimony float around the courtroom like a
bad smell – a gaseous vapor that would descend on the jury as a fine mist, and stink up their clothes, and their opinions.
Kate could sense the tide had turned against Alexandra. She needed to blow this cloud of suspicion away, right now, before it poisoned the jury against her client. She had to do something, and whatever it was she needed to do it right now.
The legs of her chair barked against the parquet floor as she shot her seat back. Her heels came together and braced beneath her. She placed her hands on the armrest of her wooden chair, ready to spring up, but her mind was blank.
She'd prepared for this trial like nothing else she'd ever done. She knew every word of every deposition, every document down to the page number in the trial bundle. But the toxicology report coming in today had been an unexpected curve ball. Suddenly that trial bundle, her strategy, her prepared cross-examination questions, everything felt alien now instead of familiar and practiced.
The power of attorney document was already in the bundle. It hadn't meant much before now. It wasn't that important. But with evidence that Frank Avellino was being drugged into submission around the same time the power of attorney had been executed – well, that threw everything into a new light. A mundane legal document that had been signed by her client now looked sinister. The whole trial bundle was now new territory. Each document could be a time bomb, waiting to blow up in her face.
She was about to stand up. All eyes on her.
When she stood she would need to ask a question. A good question.
 
Something to quell the brush fire of imagination that now swept through the jury. There was only one problem. She didn't have a question. Her mind was blank.
Sweat bled through her skin like she was a peach being crushed by the heavy silence. Even if she did think of a question, she now couldn't be certain the panic wouldn't strangle her before she could ask it aloud.
A strong hand took hold of her wrist. She turned. Bloch was holding her, drawing her closer into a whisper.
'Buy some time. Get a short continuance. I've got new information,' said Bloch, and she angled the large screen of her cell phone toward Kate. The screen display read, 'Two New Files Shared to Dropbox.'
Before she forgot what she was going to say, Kate rose.
'Your Honor, we request a short continuance.'
Stone looked lazily at the jury, and then the clock on the wall behind them. 'Looks like we've had a long day. Ten o'clock tomorrow morning, ladies and
gentlemen,' he said, and stood up. The courtroom gathered itself to stand as the judge made his exit. Eddie and Harry remained seated the whole time. Kate could almost feel the shade being thrown at those two by the judge as he made his way to his chambers.
'What have you got?' asked Kate.
'I've no idea. Not yet,' said Bloch. 'It might be nothing. Or it might be a new lead on Frank Avellino's killer.'
It took five minutes to deposit Alexandra in an Uber. Kate and Bloch couldn't wait until they got back to Kate's apartment so they found a quiet corner in the Corte Café on Lafayette and sat down with coffee. Bloch ordered a meatball sandwich. Kate, a chicken salad. With fries.
Since they were handed the toxicology report that morning, Bloch had been busy. She'd maintained a close relationship with several law enforcement agencies and various precincts in the New York area. The feelers went out ten minutes after she'd read the toxicology results. Word got around that Bloch needed help and all New York's finest and available hands went to work. It didn't matter that Bloch was now a private detective, working for a defense lawyer. She was a name, and her father had been too. NYPD look after their own. She asked them to look for any pharmacy or pharmaceutical wholesaler robberies in the last year.
The first Dropbox file revealed the results of the search.
There had been thirty-seven robberies of interest. Most of them on pharmacy premises, but two were wholesalers and there had been one hit on a